The life she once had
by Kilppari
Summary: Once upon a time, there was a little girl who lived in a magical space ship castle where her parents worked under the name of the royal family. But then the war started and that little girl had to dissapear. Ten thousand years later, a young woman found herself walking through the hallways from the bedtime stories of her childhood. Altean Pidge Au one shot.


A fic born from moment of inspiration after rediscovering Altean!Pidge AU created by Tumblr user jakehercydraws. I might have changed some details, like the colour of Pidge's markings, and I'm not even sure if they said that Pidge had her own room in the castle...

Anyway, I hope you like this little oneshot story and sorry about all possible grammar errors.

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Whenever Pidge was unable to sleep, she often found herself wandering through the castle's empty hallways. She mostly preferred the lower levels, the very same ones that were once been filled with footsteps of the royal spaceship's almost a thousand headed crew; generals, servants, ministers, mechanics, scientists… All those who had worked under King Alfor's name. Nowadays Pidge, and occasionally the other paladins and maybe Coran too, were the only living creatures filling the emptiness that had once been the whole world in the eyes of young Altean.

After her return, leaving the royal living quarters always filled Pidge with weird mixture of nostalgia and yearning. It was almost like she was almost able to catch the sounds and smells long gone but she always lost them just before recognizing what they were. More than once Pidge had found her legs leading her down the very same tracks she must have once known better than back of her own hands, more often causing Pidge become a hopelessly lost than showing her anything even slightly familiar.

But what is lost in the whirls of time, can always be rediscovered, and after she had managed to adjust the distances that her subconscious almost remembered to her now much longer legs (and after studying the castle's layout hours at the time), Pidge had little by little become the one who probably knew her way around the Castle of Lions' "civilian" quarters better than anyone else.

There was the wall she had once hit her head while playing some tag like game with _(her friends?)_ other kids. Behind that turn was the almost completely hidden laundry chute which was the fastest shortcut from the fifth floor all way down to the ground floor (and one wicked slide too). Up there was the air went, that lead to the kitchen (the main one, not the same that Hunk and Coran used nowadays) and which the kids had always used to sneak in and steal dessert meant for the royal dinners without the cooks' notice, and behind that panel was the hidden servants' door that leaded right next to the Black Lion's hangar.

Pidge smiled sadly to the faded memory of memory how she and her brother among other kids had swarmed near that one particular entrance, waiting a perfect opportunity to run past the adults, up those hidden stairs, so they could get even a little peek from the lone Lion who had yet to find its new paladin. If only they had understood, back then, what being a paladin truly meant. It wasn't just glory and heroic adventures they all had dreamed to be part of. Oh, no… It was hard work and maybe one of the most dangerous paths that the fate could give you. And somewhere in the deepest and darkest parts of her brilliant mind, Pidge knew that the Voltron had also been the reason why they had lost Altean and made her an endangered species.

But still, Pidge could not wonder what would her friends say if they had known she would become the one claiming that wanted title. Well not exactly that particular title as the Leader of Paladins and Head of the Voltron, but she was a paladin never the less.

Pidge felt her legs stop, tearing the girl out of the remnants of her early childhood memories, and she turned to look one of the hallways numerous doors. There was nothing special in it, a grey silver like metal surface with currently hidden hologram panel that would appear just perfect height to anyone who approached it. Biting nervously her lower lip, the Altean girl fingered the lavender keychain in her pocket, which she had carried with her as long as she was able to remember. Pidge had liked to think it as her lucky charm of sort or reminder that Altea wasn't just a fictional world in her parents' stories, but then Allura had given Pidge and her friend similar ones soon after their first battle against Garla. Apparently, these gemstone like objects were Altean versions from key cards and, as paladins, they had right to carry kind of "master keys" which allowed them to enter every single room in the castle expect some top secret royal chamber in which only Allura had access.

Pidge's keychain hadn't opened even single door yet, why would it? She had been just barely older than toddler back then when the war had started and it wasn't like the main rooms needed any locks… But Pidge was sure, no she _knew_ , there was at least one door her keychain would be able to open. She just had to find the right door.

"2896th time is the charm," Pidge muttered sarcastically and swept her keychain over the hologram. The young Altean was already expecting hearing that annoying bling of denied access, but instead the door slid open with quiet hiss, revealing a room full of toys and messy drawings. A child's room.

 _No, not a child's… A little girl's_.

The walls of the room were painted with a slightly lighter colour than the markings under Pidge's eyes, the shade that Katie remembered to be her favourite the majority of her childhood. There was also more than a dozen drawings there to bring brightness in the otherwise a quite monochrome room. Pictures with vaguely humanoid figures holding hands (it was nice to see that stick men were a universal form of art), messy looking pink flowers and shapes of mountains standing on the back ground were the most normal looking, but then there were the ones full of smoking dots ( _a meteor shower?)_ and very weird looking animals that could easily be either work of the artist's imagination or real creatures wandering around Altea.

The lack of books bothered Katie a bit, though she guessed that the small tablet looking device laying on the small table, half way buried under the dolls and drawings, had replaced them. At least most of the toys seemed normal enough. The objects on the floor were mostly dolls and stuffed animals, but there were also some advanced looking objects, not even mentioning the large teddy bear version from yellow lion laying on its face between sheets of unmade bed.

 _Note to self… Don't let Hunk to see that one._

Katie swallowed, moistening her suddenly dry feeling mouth and moved slowly inside the small room that should have been familiar and full of memories but felt just as foreign to the girl as the empty hallway behind her. She leaned down to pick up a small doll, dressed in a similar looking dress than the one Allura wore. Unlike the princess though, this Altean's skin tone was closer of Coran and Pidge's and its hair was colour of sand of the beach near Katie's home back on Earth. Fighting back the tear trying to sneak in her eyes, Katie's shaking fingers brushed the almost real feeling hair and pale teal marking under the doll's eyes who looked painfully similar with her mother.

Sighting, Katie placed the doll sit on the small chair, brushing its hair one more time before continuing exploring the room full of the ghosts of past, not even sure what she was looking for. None of these objects held any sentimental value to her, why would they when she couldn't remember ever even owning them? They were just another reminder of the life her family had given up a long time ago while building a new one on Earth. Long gone was that little girl who had lived in the Castle of Lion's, spending her days playing with the other children while her parents worked with the scientists, creating and building amazing things, the very same ones that Katie now struggled to understand almost every single day.

The girl let her eyes once again wander over the toys, the drawings, finally stopping to look at the closed doors of the wardrobe embedded in the wall on her right. Her natural curiosity taking best of her, Katie walked across the small room, placing her hand against the panel on the wall which made the door slide open just like they did in every single room in the castle. Unlike the room she was in, the wardrobe seemed to be in the best possible condition when it came to the cleanness. The small dresses and training suits were hanging on their hangers, perfectly sorted by the colour and purpose. The sport (or training in this case) and weekend clothes on the right, the weekday clothes on the middle and the best ones on the left. Just like Katie's mother liked to do it.

Smiling sadly, the girl led her hand wander over the mostly green, violet and warm yellow shaded clothes, enjoying the bitter sweet feeling that seeing her mother's hands work in space ship, hundreds of galaxies away from the woman herself, brought. Finally, her hand stopped to hover over the left most dress in the whole cabinet and slowly she drew it out, part of her fearing that the ten thousand years it had spent hanging there had perished the fine fabric.

This dress too had some similarities with the one that Allura liked to wore. A high collar, closed by single small button, edged with two white horizontal drops. The torso, sleeves and the line middle of the hem were soft colour of lavender, but unlike Allura's dress, this one had just a single shade, this time identical with Katie's markings, and its sleeves were shorter, probably ending somewhere above the elbows, though Katie couldn't be sure. Finally, there was that cute, white bow behind the back of the dress holding the colour of the just slightly rose tinted white, just like the majority of the dress' hem.

As Katie stared the dress on her hands, she felt how something wet and warm started roll down her cheeks as the tears she had tried to hold back so hard started to flow. The young Altean girl fell down to her knees, hugging the dress against her chest and cried. Cried the loss of her friends she was barely able to remember, mourned the life she could have had, longed the warm hug of her mother, the calming smile of her brother and safe embrace of her father. She cried the tears of rage towards Zarkon who had stolen Katie her home, towards Garrison from not caring the disappearance of her father and brother, towards Blue Lion for bringing her back to the castle, towards Allura who had forced her in the role of paladin and towards herself from forgetting the faces and names of all those dead Alteas who she had once known and who deserved to be remembered.

But the most of all, as petty as is sound, Katie cried over the dress she had never had a change to wear.

It was there where Allura, who knows how many hours later, found the younger Altean, squeezing a dress made for a little girl on her arms, the dress that was now damp and ruined thanks to all those tears she had cried.

"It's alright, little one," the princess whispered as she kneeled next to the still crying Katie, pulling the girl in gentle embrace, her voice full of understanding and shared sadness. "It's alright."

"I was supposed to wear this dress on your birthday ball," Katie hiccupped out a watery laugh. "I was going to so pretty like a princess, like you. But then Zarkon started this stupid war and now this stupid dress is too small and-" the girl broke down once again, hiding her face against Allura's night rope as the older Altean gently brushed her hair, occasionally whispering a soothing lies how everything would be okay and how it was okay to cry.

Slowly, all those tears turned Katie's eyes heavy as the girl cried herself to the sleep on the arms of the princess she whom the little Altean living in this room and whose name Katie had forgotten just like everyone else's wouldn't have even dared to speak.

"You know," Allura spoke when Katie had managed to get the most of her emotions under control "You gave Coran a quite scare when he the castle's systems informed him about the use of your key. He was almost sure that a spirit of dead child has returned to haunt us."

"Heh, sorry about that..." the girl muttered her tired apology already half a sleep.

"No it's okay," the princess assured, hint of laughter in her voice. "But I have to say... Katixa is a pretty name."

Katie blinked her eyes, not really understanding why Allura had suddenly said something like that, but right now she was too tired to care about it.

And as she slowly floated deeper in the world of dreams, the young Altean had this weird feeling that maybe, just maybe, she had found exactly what she had been looking for.


End file.
